Financial firms want better data centres

Financial firms are turning to technologies like virtualisation and grid computing in their data centres, as well as implementing "future-proof" designs to accommodate emerging technologies, reports Information Week.

Lehman Brothers has experienced strong growth over the past few years and formed data centre initiatives to boost its global capacity. In addition to focusing on power consumption, the global investment bank has other strategies in place to maximise data centred efficiencies.

"We now need to be aware of data centre planning and take power and cooling into consideration. Grid computing and virtualisation are nice tools to have for data centre planning," said Sabet Elias, CTO of Lehman Brothers, during a presentation.

Aruba Networks and Avnet Technology Solutions have signed a strategic distribution agreement, says CNN Money.

Under the agreement, Avnet Technology Solutions will market and distribute Aruba's product line to value-added resellers in North America.

The Aruba product line includes Aruba Mobility Controllers, wireless LAN access points, Remote Access Point and Secure Enterprise Mesh software, ArubaOS Mobility software, and the Aruba Mobility Management System.

Rackable Systems, which makes high-density storage servers with basic software features for large-scale data centres, has released a new generation of high-performance clustered storage appliances, reports eWeek.

Rackable's new Eco-Logical storage products feature high-efficiency, low-power consumption and intelligent design, intended to improve price performance per watt, even in very complex computing environments, says Geoffrey Noer, Rackable's senior director of product management.

"We're offering these new, energy-aware systems at about $1 000 per TB of capacity, as it scales out, far less than our competitors," he added.